Despite their distinct and unique domestic political trajectories, Bangladesh and Thailand are today facing eerily identical threats to democracy.

In both these populous Asian nations, the main opposition
political parties have declared boycotts of general elections,
jeopardizing the legitimacy of the polls and the futures of their
people. The games of electoral brinkmanship being played in these
two theaters are stoking violence and chaos, imperiling economic
growth.

Who governs the election?

Bangladesh and Thailand have witnessed such politics of deadlock
before, and it is the bitter memory of the past that is presently
precluding compromise. In the former, Begum Khaleda Zia’s
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) claims that the ruling Awami
League (AL), under Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, cannot be
trusted to conduct a free and fair election, slated for January
5th, and that it should hand over power to a non-party interim
caretaker government.

The concept of a custodian-like neutral regime without political
party representation to oversee elections used to be a
constitutional norm in Bangladesh until Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina abolished it in 2011. This act stemmed from her grievance
against the military-backed caretaker system of 2006-2008, which
delayed elections, overstayed its mandated three months, and
interrupted democratic rule until she swept back to power. In the
words of the prime minister, “we can't allow unelected people
to oversee national elections.”

A lame duck franchise

But Sheikh Hasina’s unilateral striking down of the practice of
non-partisan caretaker governments has engendered mortal fears in
the BNP’s top brass. They fear that the Prime Minister could
abuse her authority over the executive and the state
paraphernalia to rig the elections on January 5th. Her offer to
invite BNP politicians into a coalition caretaker government, in
which the opposition would have equal number of ministerial
berths as the ruling party, has been unpalatable to Begum Zia.

The BNP’s ensuing boycott call has produced a farcical situation,
where more than half the constituencies in Bangladesh’s
parliament have been declared to be won by AL’s candidates
unopposed before a single ballot has been cast. Despite diligent
attempts by foreign diplomats to persuade both sides to
reconsider their hardening positions, the prime minister’s party
is determined to hold voting on January 5th come what may
(including an image-hurting decision by foreign governments not
to deploy international election observers).

If trends are anything to go by, the BNP swept four crucial
mayoral elections in June this year, seemingly confirming the
traditional anti-incumbency factor in Bangladeshi general
elections. Supposing the BNP does carry the tide of disaffection
among various sections of the populace against corruption scams
and anti-Islamist war crimes trials of the AL government, the
former’s boycott would render the upcoming election not only
procedurally flawed but also politically meaningless. The
potential winner would be sitting out and the apparently
unpopular prime minister may keep ruling without a true mandate.

Déjà vu of follies

Even if the will of the majority of Bangladeshi voters is with
Prime Minister Hasina, the possibility that she gets re-elected
without any contest will taint the rest of her political career.
The ever ominous shadows of the Bangladeshi military and of the
fanatical Jamaat-e-Islami, which has been banned as illegal by
the country’s High Court, could take center stage if Sheikh
Hasina attempts to govern by ramming through a hollow and
incomplete election.

The Bangladeshi prime minister should wind the clock back to 1996
and recall how her AL, which was then in opposition, had
boycotted general elections and allowed Begum Zia to sweep to
power with a landslide victory that proved pyrrhic. Within a
month, the BNP had to renounce office under pressure from popular
protests, and fresh elections with the participation of all key
parties resulted in the AL’s win. The upcoming election on
January 5th is a saga of folly repeated with no lessons learnt.

Aristocracy versus the people

Thailand’s crisis has been building up through mass protests and
occupation of key government buildings by the opposition Democrat
Party and its affiliates against the ruling Pheu Thai Party
(PTP). It too involves an election boycott. The main difference,
however, is that the Democrat Party is absolutely sure of losing
the elections set for February 2nd. Its leader and former prime
minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, wants Prime Minister Yingluck
Shinawatra to resign and hand over power to a neutral interim
government that will institute “reforms” to the
political system before elections.

The Thai opposition’s desired reforms include replacement of the
basic democratic concept of rule by the majority with an
appointed ‘council’ representing various professions and the
interests of Thailand’s conservative power base concentrated in
the military and the royal family. The royalist ‘yellow
shirts’ unabashedly criticize the principle of
one-person-one-vote on the grounds that Thailand’s illiterate hoi
polloi who have been religiously voting for Prime Minister
Yingluck and her exiled charismatic brother, Thaksin Shinawatra,
are politically immature and gullible.

While the BNP in Bangladesh is still a mainstream party that was
in power until 2006 and commands vast pockets of mass support,
the Democrat Party in Thailand is a classic establishment animal
that has not won a single election since 1992. The Shinawatras,
who have mobilized the rural poor in the populous northern region
of Thailand, have been acing every election held since 2001. They
have raised the sense of political efficacy of average Thais as
part of a long-term radical strategy of attenuating the old
aristocratic elites represented by the Democrat Party.

Back to the military?

Unlike the BNP, whose opting out of Bangladeshi elections leaves
the polls empty in both form and substance, the absence of the
Democrat Party in Thailand’s February 2nd elections will not
affect the legitimacy of the result per se. But Prime Minister
Yingluck remembers that the last time the opposition boycotted an
election in 2006, it paved the way for total destabilization of
her brother Thaksin’s regime and culminated in a military coup
d’etat.

Holding elections without the Democrat Party’s participation
could invite yet another direct or behind-the-scenes army
intervention at a delicate moment in Thai history. The ageing
King, Bhumibol Adulyadej, is in the twilight of his life and
power struggles are underway to grab the mantle of the
conservative camp from the crown.

Prudence better part of valor

The only viable short-term solution to the twin fracases in
Bangladesh and Thailand is to postpone both their scheduled
elections until genuine political party competition is restored
through negotiation. Non-competitive elections do not end
contentious political street battles and turmoil. They undermine
democracy by creating vacuums which get filled by authoritarian
vested interest groups that keep lurking in the shadows in
volatile and combustible political spaces like Bangladesh and
Thailand.

One can sympathize with Prime Ministers Sheikh Hasina and
Yingluck Shinawatra for the unreasonable preconditions being
imposed by their respective opposition parties before voters can
be given a chance to exercise their franchise and bring closure
to the tiresome cycle of protests and disruptions. But if
democracy is to be protected from predatory militaries or
religious fundamentalists, rulers must show sagacity, adjust to
the situation and defer their preferred courses of action until
opponents come around.

Narrow politics digs democracy’s grave

Inter-party political rivalries are quite hotheaded in Bangladesh
and Thailand and they can blind the protagonists to the bigger
menace of anti-democratic takeovers or sabotage of the system as
a whole, which has happened time and again in the troubled
political histories of these two countries.

Technically, Bangladesh’s election date assumes more urgency
because the full five-year term of the current parliament expires
in January 2014. Thailand’s election can be delayed well until
later in 2014 or even 2015, as its last general election occurred
only in 2011. There is more time and room for tempers to cool in
Bangkok than in Dhaka. But in both cases, farsightedness is
advisable over bravado. Nothing less than the core issue of
democracy’s survival is at stake.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.